The euro crisis, cognitive dissonance, and proof that Germans have a sense of humour

It looks like denial. Greeks want the euro, but not the austerity it requires. Germans want the euro but not the tax-rises it demands.

In fact, what we're seeing is a form of cognitive dissonance. From the first, the euro was aggressively promoted as a way to boost growth. Indeed, the most surreal thing about all this talk of a 'growth strategy' in Brussels is that we're dealing with the consequences of the last 'growth strategy' – monetary union. None the less, two decades of propaganda have left their mark. People are not quite ready to see that the euro is the cause of their problems, not the solution.

The moment of enlightenment will come soon enough. And the implications, when it does, are vast. If the EU's single most prestigious project turns out to have been sold on a false premise, the reputation of the Brussels elite generally will suffer. The benefit of the doubt on which Eurocrats have been able to draw, at least in the core, Carolingian states, will vanish.

In the mean time, I pass on an anecdote which proves once and for all that Germans, or at least some Germans, have a wonderful sense of humour. After I had made the speech below (apologies for the stammer at the end: I was put off by some unusually aggressive heckling from Carl Bildt's Italian wife), a Christian Democrat friend, passing me as he walked up the aisle, slapped me on the shoulder, said, 'Ach, Hannan, but if only you had thought to warn us before!' and went off chuckling to himself.